Pour a Little Salt; KHR
It's just kind of my assumption Yamamoto won't permanently lose the ability to walk in the end, and this is just another one of Amano's tricks to get me to cry.
Also, just FYI, I love these boys so much omggg.
Title: Pour a Little Salt (We Were Never Here)
Pairing: Yamamoto/Gokudera.
Summary: Gokudera is hopeful and Yamamoto's never been one to give up.
POUR A LITTLE SALT (WE WERE NEVER HERE)
It's after the Vongola Ceremony.
There's a lapse from chaos that follows that nobody can really comprehend. Everyone is so used to misadventures creeping up that they keep warily on their toes, they suspect and fret and some of them panic - Tsuna does, of course. He bemoans a failed test like it's the end of his life - end of the world - and the realization hits Gokudera like ice water, soaking him to the very bone. There's nothing to be scared of. No reason to worry.
He thought like this before, after their long feud with the Varia that left them feeling untouchable, prepared for anything that could come their way - and the next moment, he was sat next to Tsuna's grave, feeling utterly hopeless. Now, Namimori is all sailing soft breezes, blue skies, sakura blossoms, and he can't shake off the feeling that maybe everything will be okay.
-
Visiting Yamamoto has worked out awkwardly in the past, so Gokudera drags Ryohei along as a buffer. All the heavy talk, the airy laughter, the tiptoeing from last time did them no good, and he doesn't want to endure it all again; but he knows he needs to check up on Yamamoto. Just to make sure.
He's been moved out of Vongola care to temporarily stay with Shamal, who messages Gokudera regularly about him - awake; got some colour back in him now; talking again; laughing again; too fucking loud; and Gokudera even saved one, once: jesus, was this kid dropped on his head? When Gokudera and Ryohei get there, Yamamoto and Shamal are sat at the dining table, playing cards.
“I'm teaching him,” Shamal tells them, rubbing his chin, “His poker face is shit awful.”
Yamamoto laughs loudly, lowering his hand to give Shamal a smile; the doctor doesn't see it, of course, too busy taking in Yamamoto's clearly displayed cards with an unimpressed frown. There's a sizeable bundle of pennies sat beside Shamal, and a meager few next to Yamamoto. “Poker is fun,” he tells Gokudera with a smile.
Gokudera offers one back, half-heartedly.
He and Ryohei stay most of the afternoon, trying some of the lunch Shamal made that borders on edible and flicking through some of the doctor's mostly Italian movies - although Gokudera makes sure to avoid the mafia ones; all violent, bleak stories that end in gunshots and family deaths and, what Gokudera fears the most, retribution. Yamamoto ends up pestering Gokudera into a game of Snap Gokudera will never admit to playing, and Ryohei spends most of the time trying to wrap his mind around the rules of Chase the Lady, unsuccessfully.
When he and Ryohei are walking home, Ryohei calls him a cheater and Gokudera calls him a dumbass, and then they fall into carefully light conversation about the surprising cleanliness of Shamal's apartment and the surprising amount of bad seventies musicals in Shamal's apartment.
Neither of them say anything about the wheelchair.
-
Gokudera tries not to think about it, either. About the way Yamamoto will reach over and squeeze his hand while they' sit through baseball matches on Shamal's flatscreen. About the way Yamamoto's dad sounds when he asks him to come over and help put away all the memorabilia, all the trophies and medals and even Yamamoto's first glove, signed, tattered, tiny for an eight year old fist. The one Tsuyoshi has practically sitting on their mantel.
“It's all bad now,” Tsuyoshi tells him as he lifts the first box up; he nods to himself, face almost blank. “It's all gone bad.” Then, convinced, he hauls it downstairs.
Gokudera waits until he's out of sight to sneak an old, burst-at-the-seams ball into his bag before he follows. When they're done, he watches Tsuyoshi locking the cellar door, feeling a little sick, a little dizzy and heartbroken, like he's being torn away from an old friend.
Tsuyoshi thanks him for the help and Gokudera finds himself holding his hands up defensively and giving a curt, “Don't mention it,” before he grabs his bag and gets out.
-
The smell of sushi starts to make him sick.
It's a dinner the Tenth's mother makes them, and Gokudera's taking a seat at the table when the scent drifts to him, pungent and overpowering. He makes a run for the bathroom, with Bianchi's concerned gaze following him over her surgeon's mask all the while. She and Tsuna sit by him in the bathroom and keep the door shut. Nana Sawada worriedly calls them out on the other side.
Tsuna rubs his back, looking a little terrified, and Bianchi sits his head on her lap and plays with his hair.
Gokudera takes a thick swallow. It's sore on his now sickly dry throat. “I think I should go,” he mumbles, and it comes out huskier than intended. Both his sister and the Tenth's hands pause on him.
Tsuna gives him a timid nod and Bianchi lets him out through the back door with a kiss and a soft, “Feel better, bambino.”
-
“Lovesickness,” Ryohei declares with a disgusted expression. He shakes his head solemnly before continuing, “If I was gay for Yamamoto, I'd probably be vomiting all over the place, too.”
The horror fills Gokudera up instantly, and his whole body burns in a powerful, humiliating blush. “I'm not gay for Yamamoto.” Then, almost hastily, “I'm not gay for anyone.”
Ryohei just shrugs, kicking his feet up onto Gokudera's couch carelessly. “Right now, your leather pants are telling me otherwise.”
There's a following half hour of arguing and denial that ends in Ryohei getting kicked out with a fast developing bruise on his cheek and Gokudera getting an incriminating message saying he never shuts up about you that really doesn't help matters.
-
Haru calls him up the next morning.
“It's important to tell him how you feel,” she instructs him, tone commanding. Gokudera yawns and scratches his neck, making a face.
“What the fuck are we talking about?”
She lets out a long, dramatic sigh and says, “Obviously you and Yamamoto. There's no point in -”
Gokudera hangs up. He turns his phone off for good measure, then, even after the anger has subsided, he just can't get back to sleep.
-
Now he isn't on speaking terms with Ryohei - or Haru, for that matter - he has to face Yamamoto alone again. Tsuna's busy still having meetings with the Ninth and the rest of the family before they all leave for Italy again, and Gokudera hears they even want to present the Tenth and his guardians with awards for their victory over the Shimon. That's just fine, he thinks - without any surge of pride, without any excitement rushing through him - that's okay.
Shamal isn't there when he gets to the apartment. Yamamoto is sitting in his pyjamas, glazed over at the television, and doesn't even move at the sound of Gokudera's arrival, the sound of Gokudera taking a tentative seat next on the couch next to him. Gokudera says nothing, and the silence - it makes something knot painfully in his chest.
“Squalo came by,” Yamamoto says, still zoned out. The fingers of his left hand flex absentmindedly as he speaks. His sword hand, Gokudera thinks, the one he holds drinks for customers with, the one that fumbles with Gokudera's stolen pencils with, the one that he wore his signed, tattered baseball glove on. His hand keeps opening and closing and it makes Gokudera terribly, terribly anxious.
He reaches out and takes it in his own, squeezing his eyes shut. Yamamoto's grip becomes tight and painful and Gokudera just runs a shaky thumb over his knuckles, calming; savouring.
“This - it isn't set in stone,” Gokudera says as clearly as he can. Words are bubbling up in nonsensical sequences in his head abruptly, and he feels put upon, so nervous and worried that seeing Yamamoto frown this hopeless way might become something he has to get used to. He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes and says quietly, “You've never been one to give up.”
There's a pause. The music from the television speakers sounds very far off, and the hoards of dancing people on the screen look vividly clear in painfully bright yellows and pinks and blues; so many vivid colours they begin to blur into one another and make him see spots.
The wheels of Yamamoto's chair squeak as he moves, as settles right in front of Gokudera, still clutching firmly at his hand. Gokudera watches him push himself up and lean closer and hears him breath, “You're right.” Then just, “Gokudera.”
There's still a little distance to breach. Gokudera has to meet him halfway, and the moment their lips touch he's fisting Yamamoto's shirt to keep him there. Yamamoto's hands rise and tangle in his hair and drag him closer until Gokudera is falling into the chair, straddling Yamamoto's legs - bandaged and still beneath him - and Yamamoto is letting out a choked moan against the corner of his mouth. Gokudera pulls away, heart pounding frantically, feeling taken aback and just a little liberated.
“I think it's going to be okay,” he mutters, and he presses their foreheads together. Yamamoto's hand starts sifting through his hair, and he nods, smiling softly.
“I think so,” he concedes.
Shamal chooses this moment to return home. There's a lot of yelling with no conviction, a lot of Gokudera's face setting fire and Yamamoto laughing at all the wrong times, but it could have gone worse, Gokudera thinks, until Shamal engages in a long talk about safe sex with him before he goes home and proves him wrong.
-
Yamamoto moves his toes two months after the attack. It's a slow, awkward movement, brimming with effort, with victory. He shows Gokudera and Tsuna and Ryohei with a bright grin, and the Tenth's eyes go shiny watching and start running with involuntary tears when he wraps Yamamoto up in his arms and squeezes tight. Ryohei's face lights up like it never has before, and he's babbling nonsense and patting Yamamoto heartily on the back after he witnesses it.
It takes a little longer for Gokudera to react. He stares at Yamamoto's feet in disbelief, blinks, and feels a smile spreading across his face before he can stop it.
Ryohei pulls him over and proclaims that now is the perfect and most extreme time for a group hug ever, and Gokudera doesn't protest to it.
“It's a start, huh?” Yamamoto asks him later, with Ryohei and Tsuna out of earshot. His face does this thing whenever he looks at Gokudera now. Glows with adoration. It makes Gokudera feel kind of nauseas - and maybe a little happy, too.
He smiles, wondering if maybe Yamamoto's not the only one with this problem, and he says, “Definitely.”
-
Instead of full-time care, Yamamoto gets to a point where he only needs biweekly appointments with a Vongola medical team put together by Reborn. They're ridiculously expensive, but Reborn looks glad enough to be sitting back on Yamamoto's shoulder while they take him back to his own house that Gokudera doesn't say anything about it.
Everyone's putting Yamamoto's things away, telling him to sit with his father, and Gokudera goes to help the others when Ryohei nudges him back, making an urgent face. “Get in there,” he tells Gokudera almost forcefully. Gokudera rolls his eyes, but Ryohei stands like a barrier, frowning at him until he does.
He goes back to Yamamoto and his father and holds onto the push handles of the wheelchair nervously, tight enough his knuckled become white. He feels intrusive and out-of-place until Yamamoto looks up and him and shoots him a warm grin - then he feels like he shouldn't engage in eye contact with Tsuyoshi Yamamoto and should apologise for both defiling his son and wanting to be sick because of he and his restaurant's scent.
Gokudera listens to them catching up for a while. “Place looks kind of empty,” Yamamoto notices, surveying the room, “Where's all the stuff gone?”
It makes Gokudera wince to listen to, but Tsuyoshi Yamamoto smacks his forehead and says, “I forgot.” Then, with a grin and a wink at his son he adds, “Time to put everything back.”
He makes Ryohei, who spent the whole time making lewd gestures at Gokudera and mouthing kiss him, you fuck, help him go downstairs and take everything out again.
Yamamoto's smile goes a little sad. “Guess he didn't have very high hopes.”
This makes Gokudera think, makes him reach into his bag and pull out the ratty baseball he's had sitting in there for a while - he's tried playing about with, he's unconsciously reached for a squeezed whenever he worried too much - and give it back to Yamamoto. “I just,” Gokudera tries to explain, flushing, “I just took it. For some reason.”
Yamamoto takes it in his hand and then looks up at Gokudera again, breaking into a grin. He grabs the back of Gokudera's neck and pulls him down into a hard kiss, and their noses bump and their teeth meet uncomfortably but it makes Gokudera feel happier than he has in a while.
-
Tsuna takes them both to the Namimori Shrine a few weeks later. Yamamoto is making good progress, and Gokudera has managed to circumvent every one of Ryohei, Haru and his sisters attempts to get him to discuss Yamamoto. Everything is okay.
“The Ninth kept talking about giving us awards,” Tsuna says, pulling out clumps of grass from beneath him. He shakes his head. “I don't want that. I don't want our family to be like that.”
Gokudera smiles to himself.
“I think we should wait,” he continues. “A few more years, then we're ready. I miss the normal stuff.” His shakes his head again, this time, gravely. “God, do I miss it.”
Yamamoto lets out a laugh and says agreeably, “That sounds good to me.” He hums, fingers trailing along the metal wheel by his side contentedly. He catches Gokudera's eye. “We could all use a break.” His hand drops from the wheel and reaches out a little further.
Gokudera takes it without thinking.
Also, just FYI, I love these boys so much omggg.
Title: Pour a Little Salt (We Were Never Here)
Pairing: Yamamoto/Gokudera.
Summary: Gokudera is hopeful and Yamamoto's never been one to give up.
POUR A LITTLE SALT (WE WERE NEVER HERE)
It's after the Vongola Ceremony.
There's a lapse from chaos that follows that nobody can really comprehend. Everyone is so used to misadventures creeping up that they keep warily on their toes, they suspect and fret and some of them panic - Tsuna does, of course. He bemoans a failed test like it's the end of his life - end of the world - and the realization hits Gokudera like ice water, soaking him to the very bone. There's nothing to be scared of. No reason to worry.
He thought like this before, after their long feud with the Varia that left them feeling untouchable, prepared for anything that could come their way - and the next moment, he was sat next to Tsuna's grave, feeling utterly hopeless. Now, Namimori is all sailing soft breezes, blue skies, sakura blossoms, and he can't shake off the feeling that maybe everything will be okay.
-
Visiting Yamamoto has worked out awkwardly in the past, so Gokudera drags Ryohei along as a buffer. All the heavy talk, the airy laughter, the tiptoeing from last time did them no good, and he doesn't want to endure it all again; but he knows he needs to check up on Yamamoto. Just to make sure.
He's been moved out of Vongola care to temporarily stay with Shamal, who messages Gokudera regularly about him - awake; got some colour back in him now; talking again; laughing again; too fucking loud; and Gokudera even saved one, once: jesus, was this kid dropped on his head? When Gokudera and Ryohei get there, Yamamoto and Shamal are sat at the dining table, playing cards.
“I'm teaching him,” Shamal tells them, rubbing his chin, “His poker face is shit awful.”
Yamamoto laughs loudly, lowering his hand to give Shamal a smile; the doctor doesn't see it, of course, too busy taking in Yamamoto's clearly displayed cards with an unimpressed frown. There's a sizeable bundle of pennies sat beside Shamal, and a meager few next to Yamamoto. “Poker is fun,” he tells Gokudera with a smile.
Gokudera offers one back, half-heartedly.
He and Ryohei stay most of the afternoon, trying some of the lunch Shamal made that borders on edible and flicking through some of the doctor's mostly Italian movies - although Gokudera makes sure to avoid the mafia ones; all violent, bleak stories that end in gunshots and family deaths and, what Gokudera fears the most, retribution. Yamamoto ends up pestering Gokudera into a game of Snap Gokudera will never admit to playing, and Ryohei spends most of the time trying to wrap his mind around the rules of Chase the Lady, unsuccessfully.
When he and Ryohei are walking home, Ryohei calls him a cheater and Gokudera calls him a dumbass, and then they fall into carefully light conversation about the surprising cleanliness of Shamal's apartment and the surprising amount of bad seventies musicals in Shamal's apartment.
Neither of them say anything about the wheelchair.
-
Gokudera tries not to think about it, either. About the way Yamamoto will reach over and squeeze his hand while they' sit through baseball matches on Shamal's flatscreen. About the way Yamamoto's dad sounds when he asks him to come over and help put away all the memorabilia, all the trophies and medals and even Yamamoto's first glove, signed, tattered, tiny for an eight year old fist. The one Tsuyoshi has practically sitting on their mantel.
“It's all bad now,” Tsuyoshi tells him as he lifts the first box up; he nods to himself, face almost blank. “It's all gone bad.” Then, convinced, he hauls it downstairs.
Gokudera waits until he's out of sight to sneak an old, burst-at-the-seams ball into his bag before he follows. When they're done, he watches Tsuyoshi locking the cellar door, feeling a little sick, a little dizzy and heartbroken, like he's being torn away from an old friend.
Tsuyoshi thanks him for the help and Gokudera finds himself holding his hands up defensively and giving a curt, “Don't mention it,” before he grabs his bag and gets out.
-
The smell of sushi starts to make him sick.
It's a dinner the Tenth's mother makes them, and Gokudera's taking a seat at the table when the scent drifts to him, pungent and overpowering. He makes a run for the bathroom, with Bianchi's concerned gaze following him over her surgeon's mask all the while. She and Tsuna sit by him in the bathroom and keep the door shut. Nana Sawada worriedly calls them out on the other side.
Tsuna rubs his back, looking a little terrified, and Bianchi sits his head on her lap and plays with his hair.
Gokudera takes a thick swallow. It's sore on his now sickly dry throat. “I think I should go,” he mumbles, and it comes out huskier than intended. Both his sister and the Tenth's hands pause on him.
Tsuna gives him a timid nod and Bianchi lets him out through the back door with a kiss and a soft, “Feel better, bambino.”
-
“Lovesickness,” Ryohei declares with a disgusted expression. He shakes his head solemnly before continuing, “If I was gay for Yamamoto, I'd probably be vomiting all over the place, too.”
The horror fills Gokudera up instantly, and his whole body burns in a powerful, humiliating blush. “I'm not gay for Yamamoto.” Then, almost hastily, “I'm not gay for anyone.”
Ryohei just shrugs, kicking his feet up onto Gokudera's couch carelessly. “Right now, your leather pants are telling me otherwise.”
There's a following half hour of arguing and denial that ends in Ryohei getting kicked out with a fast developing bruise on his cheek and Gokudera getting an incriminating message saying he never shuts up about you that really doesn't help matters.
-
Haru calls him up the next morning.
“It's important to tell him how you feel,” she instructs him, tone commanding. Gokudera yawns and scratches his neck, making a face.
“What the fuck are we talking about?”
She lets out a long, dramatic sigh and says, “Obviously you and Yamamoto. There's no point in -”
Gokudera hangs up. He turns his phone off for good measure, then, even after the anger has subsided, he just can't get back to sleep.
-
Now he isn't on speaking terms with Ryohei - or Haru, for that matter - he has to face Yamamoto alone again. Tsuna's busy still having meetings with the Ninth and the rest of the family before they all leave for Italy again, and Gokudera hears they even want to present the Tenth and his guardians with awards for their victory over the Shimon. That's just fine, he thinks - without any surge of pride, without any excitement rushing through him - that's okay.
Shamal isn't there when he gets to the apartment. Yamamoto is sitting in his pyjamas, glazed over at the television, and doesn't even move at the sound of Gokudera's arrival, the sound of Gokudera taking a tentative seat next on the couch next to him. Gokudera says nothing, and the silence - it makes something knot painfully in his chest.
“Squalo came by,” Yamamoto says, still zoned out. The fingers of his left hand flex absentmindedly as he speaks. His sword hand, Gokudera thinks, the one he holds drinks for customers with, the one that fumbles with Gokudera's stolen pencils with, the one that he wore his signed, tattered baseball glove on. His hand keeps opening and closing and it makes Gokudera terribly, terribly anxious.
He reaches out and takes it in his own, squeezing his eyes shut. Yamamoto's grip becomes tight and painful and Gokudera just runs a shaky thumb over his knuckles, calming; savouring.
“This - it isn't set in stone,” Gokudera says as clearly as he can. Words are bubbling up in nonsensical sequences in his head abruptly, and he feels put upon, so nervous and worried that seeing Yamamoto frown this hopeless way might become something he has to get used to. He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes and says quietly, “You've never been one to give up.”
There's a pause. The music from the television speakers sounds very far off, and the hoards of dancing people on the screen look vividly clear in painfully bright yellows and pinks and blues; so many vivid colours they begin to blur into one another and make him see spots.
The wheels of Yamamoto's chair squeak as he moves, as settles right in front of Gokudera, still clutching firmly at his hand. Gokudera watches him push himself up and lean closer and hears him breath, “You're right.” Then just, “Gokudera.”
There's still a little distance to breach. Gokudera has to meet him halfway, and the moment their lips touch he's fisting Yamamoto's shirt to keep him there. Yamamoto's hands rise and tangle in his hair and drag him closer until Gokudera is falling into the chair, straddling Yamamoto's legs - bandaged and still beneath him - and Yamamoto is letting out a choked moan against the corner of his mouth. Gokudera pulls away, heart pounding frantically, feeling taken aback and just a little liberated.
“I think it's going to be okay,” he mutters, and he presses their foreheads together. Yamamoto's hand starts sifting through his hair, and he nods, smiling softly.
“I think so,” he concedes.
Shamal chooses this moment to return home. There's a lot of yelling with no conviction, a lot of Gokudera's face setting fire and Yamamoto laughing at all the wrong times, but it could have gone worse, Gokudera thinks, until Shamal engages in a long talk about safe sex with him before he goes home and proves him wrong.
-
Yamamoto moves his toes two months after the attack. It's a slow, awkward movement, brimming with effort, with victory. He shows Gokudera and Tsuna and Ryohei with a bright grin, and the Tenth's eyes go shiny watching and start running with involuntary tears when he wraps Yamamoto up in his arms and squeezes tight. Ryohei's face lights up like it never has before, and he's babbling nonsense and patting Yamamoto heartily on the back after he witnesses it.
It takes a little longer for Gokudera to react. He stares at Yamamoto's feet in disbelief, blinks, and feels a smile spreading across his face before he can stop it.
Ryohei pulls him over and proclaims that now is the perfect and most extreme time for a group hug ever, and Gokudera doesn't protest to it.
“It's a start, huh?” Yamamoto asks him later, with Ryohei and Tsuna out of earshot. His face does this thing whenever he looks at Gokudera now. Glows with adoration. It makes Gokudera feel kind of nauseas - and maybe a little happy, too.
He smiles, wondering if maybe Yamamoto's not the only one with this problem, and he says, “Definitely.”
-
Instead of full-time care, Yamamoto gets to a point where he only needs biweekly appointments with a Vongola medical team put together by Reborn. They're ridiculously expensive, but Reborn looks glad enough to be sitting back on Yamamoto's shoulder while they take him back to his own house that Gokudera doesn't say anything about it.
Everyone's putting Yamamoto's things away, telling him to sit with his father, and Gokudera goes to help the others when Ryohei nudges him back, making an urgent face. “Get in there,” he tells Gokudera almost forcefully. Gokudera rolls his eyes, but Ryohei stands like a barrier, frowning at him until he does.
He goes back to Yamamoto and his father and holds onto the push handles of the wheelchair nervously, tight enough his knuckled become white. He feels intrusive and out-of-place until Yamamoto looks up and him and shoots him a warm grin - then he feels like he shouldn't engage in eye contact with Tsuyoshi Yamamoto and should apologise for both defiling his son and wanting to be sick because of he and his restaurant's scent.
Gokudera listens to them catching up for a while. “Place looks kind of empty,” Yamamoto notices, surveying the room, “Where's all the stuff gone?”
It makes Gokudera wince to listen to, but Tsuyoshi Yamamoto smacks his forehead and says, “I forgot.” Then, with a grin and a wink at his son he adds, “Time to put everything back.”
He makes Ryohei, who spent the whole time making lewd gestures at Gokudera and mouthing kiss him, you fuck, help him go downstairs and take everything out again.
Yamamoto's smile goes a little sad. “Guess he didn't have very high hopes.”
This makes Gokudera think, makes him reach into his bag and pull out the ratty baseball he's had sitting in there for a while - he's tried playing about with, he's unconsciously reached for a squeezed whenever he worried too much - and give it back to Yamamoto. “I just,” Gokudera tries to explain, flushing, “I just took it. For some reason.”
Yamamoto takes it in his hand and then looks up at Gokudera again, breaking into a grin. He grabs the back of Gokudera's neck and pulls him down into a hard kiss, and their noses bump and their teeth meet uncomfortably but it makes Gokudera feel happier than he has in a while.
-
Tsuna takes them both to the Namimori Shrine a few weeks later. Yamamoto is making good progress, and Gokudera has managed to circumvent every one of Ryohei, Haru and his sisters attempts to get him to discuss Yamamoto. Everything is okay.
“The Ninth kept talking about giving us awards,” Tsuna says, pulling out clumps of grass from beneath him. He shakes his head. “I don't want that. I don't want our family to be like that.”
Gokudera smiles to himself.
“I think we should wait,” he continues. “A few more years, then we're ready. I miss the normal stuff.” His shakes his head again, this time, gravely. “God, do I miss it.”
Yamamoto lets out a laugh and says agreeably, “That sounds good to me.” He hums, fingers trailing along the metal wheel by his side contentedly. He catches Gokudera's eye. “We could all use a break.” His hand drops from the wheel and reaches out a little further.
Gokudera takes it without thinking.